Numerous printers, printing assemblies, and printing techniques have been developed for various printing and image production applications. One exemplary printing technique is offset printing. Offset printing typically provides favorable characteristics of printing at high speeds as well as producing good qualities.
Offset printers are typically configured to initially provide an image to be printed upon a drum. Thereafter, the image is transferred to the paper or other media being printed. It is preferred to provide a drum surface which provides maximum transfer of ink, toner or other substance utilized to form the image upon the media. Thus, it is not uncommon for the outer surface of the drum to comprise a soft, elastic, and pliable material. The utilization of such a material is preferred to facilitate reception of the image and development of the image, as well as provide accurate transfer of the image to the media being printed upon.
Certain difficulties have been experienced in the art with the utilization of soft, elastic drum surfaces despite the advantageous characteristics provided thereby. One recognized problem is a printing process phenomena called "creep". Creep causes a uniform deformation of the printed image in the process direction due to the use of elastic printing nips. Such deformation often occurs during transfer of the image from the image generating device to a receiving drum of the printer and during transfer of the image from the receiving drum to the media.
As a result, the resultant image may be either too small or too large for the form. In particular, the resolution of the originally provided image is expanded and contracted through the offset printing process resulting in a net linear change when the image is finally transferred to the media. This printing phenomenon often results in the production of a printed image upon the media which may be either too small or too large for the form.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide a printer which achieves the benefits of offset printing devices while overcoming the problems associated therewith.